Books

Yves Engler is the author of eight books, including the recently released The New Commune-ist Manifesto — Workers of the World It Really is Time to Unite, written with three other co-authors by directing Ernesto (Ernie) Raj Peshkov-Chow, an avatar of the post ethnic international working class. All are available in bookstores across Canada and the USA. Some are available as ebooks. Yves encourages readers to purchase his books at local independent retailers or to order them through Turning The Tide bookstore. Bookstore and academic orders must be placed through Fernwood Publishing. If your organization would like to sell Yves’ books as part of fundraising activity please email yvesengler(at)hotmail.com for bulk sale prices.

The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy— 2012

Stephen Harper’s foreign policy documents the sordid story of the Canadian government’s sabotage of international environmental efforts, a government totally committed to tar sands producers and a mining industry widely criticized for abuses. Furthermore, this sweeping critique details Harper’s opposition to the “Arab Spring” democracy movement and his backing of repressive Middle East monarchies, as well as his support for a military coup in Honduras and indifference to suffering of Haitians following the earthquake that devastated their country.

Praise for The Ugly Canadian

”Ugly Canadian is a well written, thoroughly researched, powerful indictment of the Harper government’s radical shift to the right in foreign policy.”
–Scott Taylor, Editor Esprit de Corps Magazine

Lester Pearson is one of Canada’s most important political figures. A Nobel Peace laureate, he is considered a great peacekeeper and ‘honest broker.’ But in this critical examination of his work, Pearson is exposed as an ardent cold warrior who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of U.S. intervention in Canadian political affairs, he also provided important support to the U.S. in Vietnam and pushed to send troops to the American war in Korea. Written in the form of a submission to an imagined “Truth and Reconciliation” commission about Canada’s foreign policy past Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt challenges one of the most important Canadian foreign policy myths.

Praise for Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping

”The monopoly media and a controlled establishment narrative have created an image of Lester Pearson that has endured over time to the present day. Engler examines the narrative and finds it apocryphal. The result is Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping — a sweepingly persuasive book filled with background and references that makes it easy for readers to research and reach their own conclusions.”
– Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice

Stop Signs —Cars and Capitalism
on the Road to Economic,
Social and Ecological Decay— 2011

In North America, human beings have become enthralled by the automobile: A quarter of our working lives are spent paying for them; communities fight each other for the right to build more of them; our cities have been torn down, remade and planned with their needs as the overriding concern; wars are fought to keep their fuel tanks filled; songs are written to praise them; cathedrals are built to worship them. In Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay, authors Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi argue that the automobile’s ascendance is inextricably linked to capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance, political intrigue, backroom payoffs, media manipulation, racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction and war. When we challenge the domination of cars, we also challenge capitalism. An anti-car, road-trip story, Stop Signs is a unique must-read for all those who wish to escape the clutches of auto insanity.

Praise for Stop Signs

”At a time of growing global awareness and support for climate justice, Stop Signs is a key read for anyone looking to gain knowledge and insight into the contemporary crossroads faced by societies increasingly dependant and shaped by the automobile. Although factually and footnote heavy, it’s an engaging and quick read. ”
– Stefan Christoff, Rabble.ca

This book is the first critical primer about Canada’s ties to Israel. It is a devastating account of Canadian complicity in 20th and 21st century colonialism, dispossession and war crimes. The book documents the history of Canadian Christian Zionism, Lester Pearson’s important role in the United Nations negotiations to create a Jewish state on Palestinian land, the millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations used to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service ties to Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad).

Praise for Canada and Israel

”Yves Engler’s meticulously researched volume refutes, for anyone who still believes it, the myth that Canada is or ever has been an honest broker in the Middle East. Reading Engler’s work leaves one with the inescapable and sad conclusion that the essence of Canadian policy has always been support for the establishment and continued dominance of an expansionist Zionist state in the territories that now comprise Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. As a former Zionist youth leader, I thank Engler for setting the record straight and can only lament our country’s historical and ongoing contribution to the tragedy enveloping the long-suffering peoples of the Promised Land, Arab and Jewish.”
– Gabor Maté, Physician and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction.

Shortlisted for the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction in the Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards, this book could change how you see Canada. Most of us believe this country’s primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners: from troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and aspirations of Central American empire, to participation in the U.N. mission that killed Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, to important support for apartheid South Africa, Zionism and the U.S. war in Vietnam, to helping overthrow Salvador Allende and supporting the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, to Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Praise for Black Book

“We bear responsibility for what governments do in the world, primarily our own, but secondarily those we can influence, our allies in particular. Yves Engler’s penetrating inquiry yields a rich trove of valuable evidence about Canada’s role in the world, and poses a challenge for citizens who are willing to take their fundamental responsibilities seriously.”
—Noam Chomsky

“Engler has done for Canadian foreign policy what I tried to do for United States foreign policy in my book Killing Hope — cover each region of the world, showing how ‘peaceful, benevolent, altruistic Canada’ has, on numerous occasions, served as an integral part of Western imperialism, particularly the American version, helping to keep the third World down and in its place.”
—William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

For more reviews and information or to buy Black Book click here. To purchase an ebook click here.

While western leaders make speeches about building democracy, their actions speak louder than words. Based upon documents gathered using Access to Information requests, human rights investigations and in-country interviews, Canada in Haiti tells how Canada, the USA and France undermined the overthrow of Haiti’s elected government. In a country already the poorest in the western hemisphere, this has led to thousands of deaths, unimaginable suffering and further impoverishment. Canada in Haiti is a cry to the citizens of rich countries to understand what is being done in our name to the descendants of the world’s only successful slave rebellion.

Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical — 2005

What makes a student radical? Can students in the 21st century play a part in changing the world? What were those troublemakers thinking when they blocked former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University in Montreal? Playing Left Wing answers these and other questions by telling the story of how a former junior hockey player became media spokesperson for the “most radical” university students in Canada. An entertaining read, Playing Left Wing is also an informative inside look at the thinking, motivation and politics of the latest generation of student activists.